A physical impact to the head of a person may cause serious injury or death. To reduce the probability of such consequences, protective equipment, such as a helmet, is often used in activities that are associated with an increased level of risk for a head injury. Examples of such activities include, but are not limited to, skiing, snowboarding, sledding, ice skating, bicycling, rollerblading, rock climbing, skateboarding, motorcycling, and other motorsports. In general, a helmet is designed to maintain its structural integrity and stay secured to the head of a wearer during an impact or a series of impacts.
Accordingly, a motorcycle or motorsports helmet is designed to protect the wearer's head, including absorbing and dissipating energy during an impact with a surface, such as the ground. In this regard, motorsports helmet interiors include impact attenuating materials such as an arrangement of padding and/or foam, wherein the impact attenuating materials cover and contact a significant extent of the wearer's head.
Designing a commercially successful motorsports helmet presents unique challenges because consumers of motorsports helmets, such as motorcycle riders, often have very specific tastes regarding the aesthetic appearance of the helmet. Despite the added risk of not wearing a helmet, many motorcycle riders refuse to wear helmets unless compelled to do so by law, and aesthetics is one of the primary reasons cited by motorcyclists for not wearing a helmet. Designing an aesthetically appealing helmet can be challenging because the need for sufficient structural integrity in specific areas of the helmet can limit the ability to produce an aesthetically desirable helmet profile, shape, or contour.
The present invention is provided to solve these limitations and to provide advantages and aspects not provided by conventional motorcycle and motorsports helmets. A full discussion of the features and advantages of the present invention is deferred to the following detailed description, which proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings.